On this scrapbook page I used one of the flower embellishments that I made. As you see, I fashioned the petals from scraps of patterned cardstock and the leaves from corrugated cardboard. I used a tiny button stamp to create the center of the flower.

This page is entitled ".ru". You know how Canadian web addresses end in .ca, and French web addresses end in .fr? Well Russian web addresses end in, you guessed it, .ru. My computer expert husband tells me that these thingies are called top level domains. No matter what you call them, I thought that .ru would be a fun, different, twenty-first century name for this scrapbook page.

The journaling on the page tells how much it means to me to share bits of Russian culture with my son. In the photos he is standing by a replica Siberian mammoth dig (top photo) and a replica traditional Russian cottage called an izba (bottom photo). These photos were taken at one of our local zoos, which has a whole Russian section. Since an actual trip to Russia is not feasible for us right now, this is the next best thing. Hope you've enjoyed seeing the page!

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Color palettes are among my favorite challenges, because they can be interpreted so freely. They truly ignite my creativity. This month I enjoyed playing along with the Color Room palette #172. I made a thank you card.

I especially liked the grey/white horizontal striped pattern on the chair in the inspo picture, so I decided to use striped paper in my card as well.

I used a fancy toothpick, striped paper, and some word stickers to fashion a flag embellishment. Holy cow, this card is going to have to be for a very special person, on a very special occasion, if I'm going to be proclaiming "can't live without you." I'll have to save it until just the right day rolls around. :)

Lately I cannot seem to stop making ribbon ruffles. I made one for a layout recently; now I've made one for a card. Could this be the start of a ruffle addiction?

I've recently been noticing that my most successful projects combine both soft and hard textures. With that in mind, I've been making a special effort to combine textures. On this card the wooden "flagpole," the enamel dot, and the green rhinestones are "hard," while the puffy stickers, ribbon, and distressed paper are "soft."

How about you? What qualities to you feel a successful project must have? I'm interested to hear your ideas!

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Hi, everyone! I'm here to introduce the mid-month challenge over at the scrapbooking blog Child's Play Challenges. During the month of September, we want to see how the book The Cat in the Hat inspires you! Here's my design team sample.

Obviously there are lots of directions you could go with this challenge. You could create a page about a pet cat. But I did that for my last CPC reveal, and I wanted to do something different. You could make a page about a Cat in the Hat themed attraction, which I have done that before too. What I finally decided to do for this DT sample was limit myself to the same red, blue, black, and white palette of Dr. Seuss's famous book.

As far as subject matter goes, I chose a photo from a local nature center--nothing related to cats at all. Good thing we're all about creative interpretation at Child's Play! Speaking of creative, I did a bit of mixed media work on this layout. I stamped a pattern of circles with black ink and jumbo bubble wrap, I used an old plastic lid to stamp with pearlescent paint, and I scattered an array of sparkly bits and bobs across a black gesso background.

Little did I know, when my husband took this photo of me a couple years ago, that it would one day remind me of a silly pop song. You just gotta love "What Does the Fox Say," right?

I want to remind you that this Cat in the Hat challenge runs concurrently with our sequins challenge. Head on over to Child's Play Challenges to enter one or both of these challenges. Happy scrapping!

Monday, September 15, 2014

When I read that the challenge at Shopping our Stash is to use a chicken (or other bird) image, I was thrilled. See, I have a chicken stamp, but I hardly ever use it. This challenge gave me the prod that I needed to pull out that stamp. I decided to make a scrapbook layout. This layout, with photos from a farm day trip, walks a line between CAS and shabby-chick...I mean chic. :)

Almost everything on this layout is more than six months old, but the chicken stamp is by far the oldest item in my stash. It used to belong to my husband's grandmother. She was a farmer and raised chickens, so she likely had no shortage of reasons to use this stamp. I, as a city girl, have far fewer reasons to stamp chicken images, so it's always an exciting occasion when I pull out the chicken stamp. On this layout I stamped it with gold ink onto a doily.

I also stamped a My Mind's Eye sunburst image a couple times.

Since other bird images are also allowed for this challenge, I incorporated a couple Scrapmatts chipboard birds.

I seem to have a bit of a sewing vibe going on with this page...I sewed gathers in a plain white ribbon to make a ruffled border, I added some simple stitches around the metal sunshine charm, and I decorated the doily with stick pins and scraps of thread.

Today is the last day for the chicken/bird challenge at Shopping our Stash, but there will be a new challenge starting tomorrow. I encourage everyone to check out SOS--it's a great motivator to get you using what you already have.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Hi, everyone! It's the tenth of September, so I want to welcome you to the latest instalment of "Ten on the Tenth," my monthly destashing series. For this series I take ten items from my stash of supplies and use them to create both a card and a layout. Then, I create one more project, using up whatever scraps are left. To whet your appetite, I'll begin this post by showing you the card that I created.

This month I thought it would be fun to use up some "mini"-sized supplies, including sequins, a button stamp, 8.5x11" cardstock, and 6x6" patterned paper. Sometimes it's fun to move away from the standard 12x12" scrapbook page and make something little and cute.

The triptych above shows my supplies. They're all in the top photo. The bottom left photo shows the flipsides of the patterned papers, which offer many colorful cut-apart pieces. The bottom right photo shows a close-up of the index card sheet and the button stamp. With these supplies, I had the option of creating a subtle, tone-on-tone kraft look, as I did for the birthday card at the top of this post. But I also had the option of creating something much more colorful...

To my surprise, I had very little cardstock and paper left over when I had finished making the birthday card and cat layout. All I could think to do with the scraps was to make some page embellishments, which is what you see in this photo. I've already begun using these embellishments on some new scrapbook pages. I'll show an example in a future post. [ETA: I've added that post here.] But for now, I'm going to sign off. Thanks for visiting my blog today. I always enjoy sharing ideas for fun ways to use up supplies. Happy crafting! :)

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Last week, in my book review, I gushed about the inspiration I gained from Lois Ehlert's The Scraps Book. Wanting to experiment with elements from Ehlert's signature style, I decided to create a mini album. It's still a work in progress, but I'm excited to show you what I've done on it so far. The specific elements from Ehlert's style that I want to incorporate into my mini are: 1. bold, colorful shapes, and 2. collage of household items.

I'm making the album pages from upcycled "Simply Delish" dessert boxes. After gessoing and/or painting both sides of the cardboard, I'm creating collaged backgrounds using household items. See if you can spot some of the materials I used in the following detail shots.

In the photo above, you can see stamping with two types of bubble wrap--regular and jumbo. I love the "crackle" effect on the jumbo bubbles.

I used colorful scraps of gift tissue, as well as a scrap of ribbon, on the page above. You may also be able to spot scraps torn from an extra coffee shop napkin on all of my pages.

The flocked design on an old Easter egg card turned out to be a great stamp for the two pages in the above photo.

I'm really excited about this album. It's nice to be able to run with a fresh source of inspiration...something a little bit different, yet still right up my alley. My next step, after I finish collaging the pages and adding a thin topcoat of paint, will be to add photos, journaling, and further embellishment. Once I have the whole book assembled, I'll share the finished product with you in another post. So, stay tuned. And thanks for visiting my blog today!

For my inspiration piece, I used a sprinkling of sequins to enliven a kraft background.

Did you spot the kitty (Maggie) in the photo, among the books on the shelf? The title of this page is "Cats & Books"...

...and the journaling, written along the side of the photo on tiny index cards, says "best things in life."Be sure to check out the CPC blog to see inspiration from the rest of the design team. Happy scrapping!